Social media is a great tool that allows you to interact and engage with your customer bases. Even better, using platforms like Facebook and Twitter to run contests or promotions is a highly effective way to establish your brand, reward your customers, generate sales, and build an ongoing relationship with your larger network. This means that if you’re not running contests already (or not running them correctly), you may get left behind.

Why You Should Run Contests

If you have been thinking about running a contest or promotion but haven’t done one yet, now is the time. Since Facebook and Twitter are the most socially used media platforms, we would recommend starting there. Facebook has 845 million monthly active users, and Twitter has over 100 million. But more specifically, Facebook reaches about 44 percent of all Internet users on a daily basis and Twitter reaches about 8.6 percent of all Internet users daily, according to web analytics company Alexa.com. What does this mean for you? That means you have the attention of a lot of people, each and every day. By using social media to send out promotions, you not only get to interact in a meaningful way (by offering them something they want and encouraging participation), you will likely gain new fans — it’s the best of both worlds.

Running a simple enter-to-win contest, offering discounts to those who promote to friends, or showing off your sense of humor by encouraging creative submissions are all great ways to interact with your customers. However, before you plan to run the promotion, verify that it complies with both Facebook and Twitter contest guidelines. Use these checklists to ensure you are following the rules for every promotion.

Contest Checklist for Facebook

Facebook emphasizes that it is up to you to ensure any contest or promotion you are running is legal, in addition to meeting the following guidelines:

• Promotions must to be run though Apps on Facebook.com, either on a Canvas Page or an app on a Page Tab.
• Each entrant must release Facebook of any liability.
• You must acknowledge that the contest it is no way associated with Facebook.
• Participants must know and acknowledge that they any information given for the contest is given to your business, not Facebook.
• Facebook’s tools can’t be used for the contest, meaning you cannot encourage participants to enter by “liking” a page or using check-in. You also can’t require them to use FB features to be eligible (e.g., no requesting photo uploads, likes, wall posts). And the like button may not be used as a voting mechanism.
• The contest must have its own registration or entry form.
• You can’t notify winners through Facebook.
• Ads can’t imply that Facebook endorses or partners in any way.

Contest Checklist for Twitter

Twitter also has its own specifications regarding contests and promotions, including:

• Verify that the contest or promotion follows all laws and regulations.
• Discourage users from creating multiple accounts to enter the contest more than once — your account can be suspended if you encourage this.
• Don’t ask for retweets for contest eligibility. Posting the same tweet repeatedly is against Twitter’s rules, and can result in followers being filtered out of the Twitter search.
• Use current and relevant hashtag topics (not #contest or #companyname)—this can also violate Twitter rules.

As long as your contest complies with these specific rules, then you can get started. Remember, make the contests creative and fun to draw more people in. Maybe encourage them to submit photos, videos, or essays that include your product in use. Remember: the more engaging the contest, the better the results will be.

Twitter is increasingly becoming one of the most popular Social Networking platforms. While there are many reasons for the explosive growth of Twitter across the globe; if I had to list down the top 5 reasons on why Twitter has gained in popularity, they are below:

1. The introduction of the Tweet of 140 characters
a) You can tweet from the web or mobile
b) The 3S Factor – It’s Short, Specific and Simple!!!

2. It gives you the option to choose who you would like to Follow based on your interest – It is your personal choice ONLY! Subsequently you can Follow / Unfollow at will

3. Easy to use interface for typing a Tweet. Of course, it takes time to understand other features but just typing a Tweet is simple and can be done easily

4. Option to choose the level of privacy – You can control who reads your tweets

5. No limit to the number of followers for a Twitter handle – Everyone loves the concept of abundance, infinite and limitless

While many individuals use Twitter for many reasons, in this blog I have listed the 9 Most Specific Ways YOU can use Twitter – The list below has been compiled based on my observations of Twitter usage over the last 3 years, my own personal usage of Twitter and by surveying others in the world of Twitter.

1. A personal log of your activities, thoughts and emotions
Many of us like to have a personal log of our daily activities, events, achievements, thoughts and emotions. Twitter can help you do just that – Provided you are disciplined about tweeting. If this is your key focus, using your mobile would be the preferred input device for tweeting.

2. A log of all that you read
Many of us tend to be content consumers in our life. We read from many different sources and like to have a consolidated repository for our own future reference. Twitter can enable you to consolidate all that you read and believe is worthy of storing, consolidating and archiving

3. To Share
Many of us like to share all that we know, all that we read, all that we learn, all that we believe can be of value to someone at some point in time – Twitter helps you to share with a known and unknown face anywhere across the globe

4. To Connect with others
Inherent to the human nature is the need to connect, to bond. And many of us like to connect with like-minded people, connect to people we admire, connect with the wise, connect with the successful, connect with celebrities – Just to listen to their voices, to know them better, to get a slice of their life, to unravel their thoughts, to know what keeps them going, to hear their views, opinions and to get the latest news

5. To Learn
Twitter can be a great learning platform – on any subject. If you are clear about what you want to learn, the time horizon you have in mind and the time you are willing to invest – you can adopt different strategies on how you can accomplish this. But at a high level, this translates to identifying the Twitter handles that are considered knowledgeable in the specific area(s) under question, and then follow their tweets. Over a period of time, you would have learnt way beyond your own expectation and imagination

6. To Create a Personal Brand
Many of us like to have a personal brand of our own – It can be as a technology expert, a great chef, a spiritual guru, a great parent, a benevolent advisor, the encyclopedia for answers on one / many subjects. And Twitter helps you to create this brand – Provided you focus, think, plan and tweet accordingly.

7. To garner support for a specific cause
One of the most powerful usages of Twitter is to amass support for a specific cause – it could be to donate blood for a medical emergency or to gather votes for a reality contest or a larger global issue of policy, governance, etc. which you strongly believe in. And Twitter can be very effectively used for creating awareness to a large base of global audience in real-time

8. To get a dose of motivation, inspiration and humor
This was a bit of a surprise! But a lot of people said that the primary reason for them to use Twitter was to get a dose of motivation, inspiration and humor – It could be for a specific low time in your day, to a blue moment in life, or just that one tweet to kick-start your day on a positive note, or that daily health tip which will give you the fuel to stick to your diet and exercise regime…

9. Just Like That!
I hear this a lot. A lot of people use Twitter with no specific intent, no specific objective and no specific agenda. They use it because it exists, because everyone around them is using it, because they have time..

In reality, majority of us use Twitter for one / many of the objectives listed above. Your primary objective on Twitter Usage will determine the quality and quantity of your tweets, your behavior and tweeting patterns. However, in the long run (say 10, 20 or 30 years from now) you will end-up with a huge volume of your own tweets covering a range of topics and tweeted with different intents. While traversing this growing volume of tweets will become a challenge to individuals like you and me, it will also provide ample opportunities for businesses on tweet segmentation, grouping, consolidation and aggregation.

Originally published @ http://nischalamurthy.wordpress.com/2011/12/28/9-specific-ways-you-can-use-tw…

Author: Nischala Murthy Kaushik Nischala Murthy Kaushik on the Web Nischala Murthy Kaushik on Twitter Nischala Murthy Kaushik on LinkedIn Nischala Murthy Kaushik RSS Feed

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About one in three real estate contracts were canceled in January, up from 9 percent the previous year. Lowball appraisals are most to blame, agents say.

A recent article at Zillow points out how home owners may be able to improve their appraisal: 

Gather about six comps ahead of time. Appraisers will pull their own comparables of recent sale prices to help determine the home’s value, but real estate professionals can walk sellers through at least six comparables beforehand in educating the seller about pricing the home. This can help prepare them for what an appraisal might show later too.

Show off upgrades. The appraiser will inspect the property and sellers and their agents should carefully consider what separate the homes that are similar from theirs. This may include a finished basement, the biggest yard on the block, or maybe its location in a scenic area. Sellers should “respectfully tell [the appraiser] what you know,” treating them as a member of your team, says Sara Stephens, president of the Appraisal Institute. “It will increase the odds of your getting a fair and accurate assessment.”

You can appeal an appraiser. Believe the appraisal was unfair? Most lenders allow home owners to challenge an appraisal they feel wasn’t done correctly, but home owners can just say their home is worth more as their sole justification. Home owners will need to prove an error or omission, such as comps that should have been taken into consideration but weren’t (another reason to review those comps before). Home owners can also take their complaints to the state’s appraisal board if they feel their case isn’t being properly reviewed.